The matter of food insecurity is becoming a reality globally and here in Jamaica. As the famine intensifies, you are encouraged to get back into growing your own food. If it is that you can’t find time during the day, you may have to use the nighttime to do so. It is late but not too late to start.
Make an effort to plant something because you may feel you can rely on imported items, but you may soon find that countries are withholding their food products for their own population. And even when they export, it may not be the best quality; they spoil easily.
You don’t need a large area to plant either. Plus, you can do container gardens, use tires.
If you don’t have space to farm or you’re unable to plant, partner with other persons in your neighbourhood who are planting and have the time. Negotiate with them to plant crops for you, and you pay them. You can also partner with persons in the community who have land that they are not using; you can rent parcels from them and cultivate your own crops.
TEACH THE CHILDREN
Teach your children to farm by giving them their own little plot or pot to plant so they get the knowledge and experience. That will never leave them. When you grow your own food, it not only saves you money; it helps you to deal with stress; interacting with the soil with your bare hands helps to lift your spirit. Similarly, the children will benefit.
So, Minister of Education, instead of introducing our children to peace benches and transcendental meditation, get them into farming initiatives; reinstitute these things in schools. Agriculture in schools teaches discipline, and there is less time for the children to get in trouble. Instead of pushing digital this and digital that, push farming. When we focus on digital, instead of enhancing us, it will only cause us to diminish and be dependent on others for our food. And it will make us unhealthier, too. Look at the lifestyle diseases and how these are increasing—obesity, for example, because our children are spending countless hours on their gadgets instead of being outdoors planting something.
STOP RECKLESS SELLING OF OUR LAND
Remember that everybody has to eat. Regardless of who you are or what you have or don’t have, you must eat. We can’t eat digital solutions. We can’t eat NIDS, cashlessness, nor constitution reform.
Look at the mess that the nation is in now, how many persons are suffering and hungry. What must be pushed across Jamaica as number one is agriculture, not tourism! Under God, encourage agriculture in every community. Make lands available for farming instead of building roads and high-rise buildings. The nation must retain ownership of our lands, even if others come in to help. Stop recklessly selling off our lands.
Farming is going to be one of the strategies that God will be using to help Jamaica resist the beast and the beast system and ensure we are self-reliant. This is a clarion call.